It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Encyclopedia
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan
and featured on his Bringing It All Back Home
album, released on March 22, 1965 by Columbia Records
(see 1965 in music
). The song was originally recorded on January 15, 1965 with Dylan's acoustic guitar
and harmonica
and William E. Lee's
bass guitar
the only instrumentation. The lyrics were heavily influenced by Symbolist poetry and bid farewell to the titular "Baby Blue." There has been much speculation about the real life identity of "Baby Blue", with suspects including Joan Baez
, David Blue, Paul Clayton, Dylan's folk music audience, and even Dylan himself.
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" has been covered many times by a variety of different artists, including Baez, Them
, The Byrds
, The Animals
, The Chocolate Watch Band, Graham Bonnet
, Judy Collins
, Joni Mitchell
, Marianne Faithfull
, Falco
, The 13th Floor Elevators, and the Grateful Dead
. Them's version, released in 1966 influenced garage bands
during the mid-60's and Beck
later sampled it for his 1996 single
"Jack-Ass
". The Byrds recorded the song twice in 1965 as a possible follow up single to "Mr. Tambourine Man
" and "All I Really Want to Do", but neither recording was released in that form. The Byrds did release a 1969 recording of the song on their Ballad of Easy Rider album (see 1969 in music
).
for the Bringing It All Back Home album on January 15, 1965 and was produced by Tom Wilson. The track was recorded on the same day Dylan recorded the other three songs on side 2 of the album: "Mr. Tambourine Man
", "Gates of Eden
" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)". However, Dylan had been playing those other songs live for some time, allowing them to evolve before recording of the album commenced. For "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", Dylan wanted to record the song before he became too familiar with it. There were at least two studio recordings prior to the one that was released on the album. Dylan recorded an acoustic version on January 13 and a semi-electric version on January 14. The version of the song on the album is sparsely arranged with Dylan accompanying himself on acoustic guitar
and harmonica
, with William E. Lee
playing bass guitar
. Author Clinton Heylin
states that the song is another of Dylan's "'go out in the real world' songs, like "To Ramona
", though less conciliatory – the tone is crueler and more demanding." As well as being the final track on Bringing It All Back Home, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" was also the final song to be recorded for the album.
Bill Janovitz
of Allmusic describes the music as beautiful, with folk
guitar chord changes
and a somber melody, while the chorus, with its line "and it's all over now, Baby Blue" has a heartbreaking quality to it. Like other Dylan songs of the period, such as "Chimes of Freedom
" and "Mr. Tambourine Man", the lyrics of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" bear the strong influence of Symbolist poets
such as Arthur Rimbaud
. Lines such as "take what you have gathered from coincidence" reflect the I Ching
philosophy that coincidence represents more than mere chance. The song was described by Q
magazine as, "The most toxic of strummed kiss-offs, with not a snowball's chance in hell of reconciliation." Dylan, later describing the song, said that "I had carried that song around in my head for a long time and I remember that when I was writing it, I'd remembered a Gene Vincent
song. It had always been one of my favorites, Baby Blue... 'When first I met my baby/she said how do you do/she looked into my eyes and said/my name is Baby Blue.' It was one of the songs I used to sing back in high school. Of course, I was singing about a different Baby Blue."
and Another Side of Bob Dylan
both ended with a farewell song, "Restless Farewell
" and "It Ain't Me, Babe" respectively. "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" concludes Bringing It All Back Home in consistent fashion. Much speculation has surrounded who or what the "Baby Blue" that Dylan was saying farewell to was. Although Dylan himself has remained mute on the subject, Dylan scholars believe that it is probably an amalgam of personalities within Dylan's social orbit. One person who has been regarded as the subject of the song is folk singer
Joan Baez
. Dylan and Baez were still in a relationship and were planning to tour together, but Dylan had been growing as an artist and as a person and may have already been planning to leave the relationship. Another possibility is a singer-songwriter
named David Blue. A friend or acquaintance of Dylan's from his days in New York
's Greenwich Village
, Blue is pictured on the cover of Dylan and the Band
's The Basement Tapes
album wearing a trench coat
. Yet another possibility is Dylan's one-time friend, folk singer Paul Clayton. Although Clayton had been Dylan's friend throughout 1964, and had accompanied Dylan on the road trip across the United States
on which "Chimes of Freedom" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" were written, by 1965 he may have become more devoted to Dylan than Dylan was comfortable with, and Clayton's use of amphetamine
s may have made him difficult to be around. However, author Paul Williams, in his book Performing Artist: Book One 1960–1973, counters that "Dylan may have been thinking of a particular person as he wrote it, but not necessarily", adding that the song has such a natural, flowing structure to it, that it could "easily have finished writing itself before Dylan got around to thinking about who 'Baby Blue' was."
Another interpretation of the song is that it is directed at Dylan's folk music
audience. The song was written at a time when he was moving away from the folk protest
movement musically and, as such, can be seen as a farewell to his days as an acoustic guitar-playing protest singer. Dylan's choice of performing "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" as his last acoustic song at the infamous Newport Folk Festival
of 1965, after having had his electric set met with boos, is often used as evidence to support this theory. That particular performance of the song is included in Murray Lerner
's film The Other Side of the Mirror
.
Yet another interpretation is that Dylan is directing the farewell to himself, particularly his acoustic performer self. The opening line "You must leave now" can be a command, similar to the line "Go away from my window" that opens "It Ain't Me, Babe". But it can also be an imperative, meaning just that it is necessary that you leave. And the song is as much about new beginnings as it is about endings. The song not only notes the requirement that Baby Blue leave, but also includes the hope that Baby Blue will move forward, in lines such as "Strike another match, go start anew". If Dylan is singing the song to himself, then he himself would be the "vagabond who's rapping at your door / standing in the clothes that you once wore". That is, the new, electric, surrealist Dylan would be the vagabond, not yet having removed the "clothes" of the old protest singer. Alternatively, the vagabond and "stepping stones" referenced in the song have been interpreted as Dylan's folk audience that Dylan needs to leave behind. He would also be telling himself to "Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you." Others he may be saying farewell to in the song are any of the women he had known, the political left or to the illusions of his youth.
, The Essential Bob Dylan
, Dylan
and the UK version of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits
. Dylan played the song for Donovan in his hotel room during his May 1965 tour of England in a scene shown in the D. A. Pennebaker
documentary Dont Look Back
. A version of the song is included on the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese
's documentary No Direction Home
. A live version from Dylan's famous May 17, 1966 concert in Manchester, England (popularly but mistakenly known as the Royal Albert Hall
concert) is included on The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert. Another live version from the Rolling Thunder Revue
tour of 1975 is contained on The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue
. As of 2009, Dylan continues to perform the song in concert
.
In a 2005 readers' poll reported in Mojo
, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" was listed as the #10 all time best Bob Dylan song, and a similar poll of artists ranked the song #7. In 2002, Uncut
listed it as the #11 all time best Bob Dylan song.
The Belfast
band Them
(featuring Van Morrison
) recorded a cover of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" that was first released on their album, Them Again
, in January 1966 in the UK and April 1966 in the U.S. The song was subsequently issued as a single
(b/w "I'm Gonna Dress in Black") in the Netherlands during October 1966 but failed to reach the Dutch Singles Chart
. It was later re-released in Germany in December 1973 with "Bad or Good" on the B-side
, following its appearance in the 1972 German television movie
, Die Rocker (aka Rocker). The single became a hit in Germany, first entering the charts in February 1974 and peaking at #13, during a chart stay of 14 weeks.
Morrison recalled his first encounter with Dylan's music in an interview in 2000: "I think I heard [The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
] in a record shop in Smith Street. And I just thought it was just incredible that this guy's not singing about 'moon in June' and he's getting away with it... The subject matter wasn't pop songs, ya know, and I thought this kind of opens the whole thing up." Morrison's record producer
at the time, Bert Berns
, encouraged him to find models for his songs, so he bought Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home album in March 1965. One of the songs on the album held a unique fascination for Morrison and he soon started performing "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in small clubs and pubs as a solo artist (without Them).
Producer Tommy Scott was conscious of the importance of Dylan's music on the current pop
scene and was eager for Morrison to cover "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" during the 1965 sessions for Them's second LP
. After a failed, preliminary attempt to record the track with session pianist
, Phil Coulter
, at Regent Sound studios in London, Scott reconsidered his approach to the song. Scott recalled in interview that "The number wasn't going down, Van wasn't sure. Then the guys said he didn't fancy it and thought it was cheap because I'd tried to go after the "Here Comes the Night" tempo." The band returned to the song during a later session at Decca's
recording studios. Scott decided to rearrange the song's musical backing, incorporating a distinctive reoccurring blues
riff
and piano
work from Them's keyboard
player, Peter Bardens
, resulting in a finished recording that the band were satisfied with. The song featured one of Morrison's most expressive vocals and included subtle changes to Dylan's lyrics; instead of singing "Forget the dead you've left" Morrison alters the line to "Forget the debts you've left".
Greil Marcus
stated in a 1969 Rolling Stone
review that "Only on Dylan's 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue' does Van truly shatter all the limits on his special powers...Each note stands out as a special creation – 'the centuries of emotion that go into a musician’s choice from one note to the next' is a phrase that describes the startling depth of this recording. Played very fast, Van's voice virtually fighting for control over the band, 'Baby Blue' emerges as music that is both dramatic and terrifying." In recent years, author Clinton Heylin has noted that Them's 1966 recording of the song is "that genuine rarity, a Dylan cover to match the original." After Van Morrison left the band in 1966, Them spinoff group, The Belfast Gypsies, recorded a cover of the song on their 1967 album, Them Belfast Gypsies.
Them's interpretation of the song, with Morrison as vocalist, became influential during the years 1966 and 1967, with several garage rock
bands, including The Chocolate Watch Band and The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
, recording versions of the song that were indebted to Them's cover version. Beck
used a sample
of Them's 1966 recording of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" as the basis for his single "Jack-Ass
", which appeared on his 1996 album, Odelay
(see 1996 in music
). Insane Clown Posse
later sampled Beck's song as the basis for "Another Love Song
", which appeared on their 1999 album, The Amazing Jeckel Brothers
. Hole
's cover of the song also uses Them's recording as a blueprint. Them's original 1966 version of the song has appeared in movies, such as the 1996 film Basquiat, the 1972 German film Rocker by Klaus Lemke and the 2000 film Girl, Interrupted
.
In 1993, Van Morrison included Them's cover of the song on his compilation album The Best of Van Morrison Volume Two
. In addition to recording "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" with Them, Morrison has covered the song frequently in concert
throughout his solo career, beginning in 1974, but has never released a studio or live recording of it as a solo artist. In 1984, Morrison made a guest appearance at one of Bob Dylan's concerts in London and the two musicians performed a duet of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". Morrison and Dylan also sang a duet of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" at the final concert of Dylan's 1984 tour on July 8, 1984 at Slane Castle
, Ireland.
In a 2009 Paste
magazine readers, writers and editors poll of the 50 Best Bob Dylan Covers of All Time, Them's version of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" was ranked at #28.
' recording of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" first saw release on October 29, 1969 as part of the band's Ballad of Easy Rider album. The song also appeared on the B-side
of the band's December 1969 single, "Jesus Is Just Alright
", which reached #97 on the Billboard Hot 100
chart. The Byrds had previously attempted to record the song on two separate occasions, some four years earlier, during studio sessions
for their second album, Turn! Turn! Turn!
The Byrds initially planned to release "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in 1965, as a follow-up to their previous hit Bob Dylan covers, "Mr. Tambourine Man
" and "All I Really Want to Do". The band's first attempt at recording the song was on June 28, 1965: resulting in an irreverent, garage rock
style take on the song. This version was deemed unsatisfactory and remained unreleased for 22 years, until its inclusion on the Never Before
album in 1987. The June 28, 1965 recording can also be heard on the 1996 expanded reissue of Turn! Turn! Turn! as well as on The Byrds and There Is a Season
box sets.
The band attempted a second recording of the song during August 1965. A program director
from KRLA
, who was present at the recording sessions, was impressed enough to play an acetate disc
of the track on air, plugging it as The Byrds' new single. However, The Byrds soon abandoned the idea of releasing "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" as their third single and instead issued the song "Turn! Turn! Turn!". The Byrds' August 1965 version of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" has never been released.
Guitarist
and band leader, Roger McGuinn
, returned to the composition during a July 22, 1969 recording session for the band's Ballad of Easy Rider album. McGuinn decided to slow down the tempo and radically alter the song's arrangement
to fashion a more somber and serious version than those recorded in 1965. In tandem with the slower tempo, the band dragged the syllables of each word out in order to emphasize the world-weariness of the song's lyric. Ultimately, McGuinn was dissatisfied with the recording of the song included on Ballad of Easy Rider, feeling that it tended to drag within the context of the album. In addition to appearing on Ballad of Easy Rider, The Byrds' 1969 recording of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" can also be found on the compilation album
s The Byrds Play Dylan
and The Very Best of The Byrds
.
, who has sometimes been speculated to be the subject of the song, covered it on her 1965 album Farewell, Angelina. It is one of four Dylan covers on that album, the others being the title track, "Mama, You Been on My Mind" (recorded as "Daddy, You Been on My Mind"), and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
". Baez sings "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in a falsetto voice, but retains the power of Dylan's version. Baez has continued to perform the song at live concerts
well into the modern era.
Others who have covered the song include Judy Collins
, Joni Mitchell
, Marianne Faithfull
, Bryan Ferry
, Manfred Mann's Earth Band
, Echo & the Bunnymen
, Falco
, The Seldom Scene, Jon Fratelli, the Grateful Dead
, The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
, The Chocolate Watch Band, Richie Havens
, Steve Howe
, The 13th Floor Elevators, Hole
, Graham Bonnet
and Chris Farlowe
. Gal Costa
performed a version of the song in Portuguese
under the title of "Negro Amor" on her 1977 album Caras e Bocas
. Link Wray
also covered the song on his album Bullshot.
George Harrison
, who performed with Dylan in the Traveling Wilburys
and also co-wrote the song "I'd Have You Anytime" with Dylan in November 1968, did not cover the song, but did reference the title in his 1987 single, "When We Was Fab
". One of the lyrics in the song reads "But it's all over now, baby blue", which is a nod from Harrison to his friend Dylan.
The Chocolate Watch Band version of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" is featured in the documentary Tarnation. The song was a source of inspiration for Joyce Carol Oates
' short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
", prompting her to dedicate the story to Dylan. A portion of the first verse of the song was used as the title for Barry Hannah
's 1995 novel Yonder Stands Your Orphan. Graham Bonnet
's version of the song appears on the soundtrack of the 2009 Peter Jackson
film The Lovely Bones
.
While not actually a cover, the rock band Nine Days
included a sample of Dylan singing two lines from "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in their song "Bob Dylan" from the album The Madding Crowd
.
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
and featured on his Bringing It All Back Home
Bringing It All Back Home
Bringing It All Back Home is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's fifth studio album, released in March 1965 by Columbia Records. The album is divided into an electric and an acoustic side. On side one of the original LP, Dylan is backed by an electric rock and roll band - a move that further alienated...
album, released on March 22, 1965 by Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
(see 1965 in music
1965 in music
-Events:*January 4 – Fender Musical Instruments Corporation is sold to CBS for $13 million.*January 12 – Hullabaloo premieres on NBC. The first show included performances by The New Christy Minstrels, comedian Woody Allen, actress Joey Heatherton and a segment from London in which Brian Epstein...
). The song was originally recorded on January 15, 1965 with Dylan's acoustic guitar
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
and harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
and William E. Lee's
Bill Lee (musician)
William James Edwards "Bill" Lee III is an American musician. He has played the bass for many artists including Cat Stevens, Harry Belafonte, Chad Mitchell Trio, Gordon Lightfoot, Aretha Franklin, Odetta, Simon and Garfunkel, and Bob Dylan...
bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
the only instrumentation. The lyrics were heavily influenced by Symbolist poetry and bid farewell to the titular "Baby Blue." There has been much speculation about the real life identity of "Baby Blue", with suspects including Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, David Blue, Paul Clayton, Dylan's folk music audience, and even Dylan himself.
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" has been covered many times by a variety of different artists, including Baez, Them
Them (band)
Them were a Northern Irish band formed in Belfast in April 1964, most prominently known for the garage rock standard "Gloria" and launching singer Van Morrison's musical career...
, The Byrds
The Byrds
The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
, The Animals
The Animals
The Animals were an English music group of the 1960s formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade, and later relocated to London...
, The Chocolate Watch Band, Graham Bonnet
Graham Bonnet
Graham Bonnet is an English rock vocalist, and songwriter. He has recorded and performed as a solo artist, and as a member of several hard rock and heavy metal bands including Rainbow, the Michael Schenker Group, Alcatrazz, and Impellitteri.-Early days:Bonnet was born in Skegness in 1947...
, Judy Collins
Judy Collins
Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...
, Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
, Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....
, Falco
Falco (musician)
Johann Hölzel , better known by his stage name Falco, was an Austrian pop and rock musician and rapper. He had several international hits: "Der Kommissar", "Rock Me Amadeus", "Vienna Calling", "Jeanny", "The Sound of Musik", "Coming Home " and posthumously, "Out Of The Dark"...
, The 13th Floor Elevators, and the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
. Them's version, released in 1966 influenced garage bands
Garage rock
Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...
during the mid-60's and Beck
Beck
Beck Hansen is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by the stage name Beck...
later sampled it for his 1996 single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
"Jack-Ass
Jack-Ass (song)
"Jack-Ass" is a single by Beck, taken from the album Odelay. The song is based on a sample of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", performed by Them, from their 1966 album Them Again....
". The Byrds recorded the song twice in 1965 as a possible follow up single to "Mr. Tambourine Man
Mr. Tambourine Man
"Mr. Tambourine Man" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, which was released on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. The Byrds also recorded a version of the song that was released as their first single on Columbia Records, reaching number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and...
" and "All I Really Want to Do", but neither recording was released in that form. The Byrds did release a 1969 recording of the song on their Ballad of Easy Rider album (see 1969 in music
1969 in music
-Events:Perhaps the two most famous musical events of 1969 were concerts. At a Rolling Stones concert in Altamont, California, a fan was stabbed to death by Hells Angels, a biker gang that had been hired to provide security for the event...
).
Composition and recording
Bob Dylan most likely wrote "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in January 1965. The master take of the song was recorded during the sessionsStudio recording
The term studio recording means any recording made in a studio, as opposed to a live recording, which is usually made in a concert venue or a theatre, with an audience attending the performance.-Studio cast recordings:...
for the Bringing It All Back Home album on January 15, 1965 and was produced by Tom Wilson. The track was recorded on the same day Dylan recorded the other three songs on side 2 of the album: "Mr. Tambourine Man
Mr. Tambourine Man
"Mr. Tambourine Man" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, which was released on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. The Byrds also recorded a version of the song that was released as their first single on Columbia Records, reaching number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and...
", "Gates of Eden
Gates of Eden
Gates of Eden is a collection of short stories written by Ethan Coen, first published in November 1998. The title comes from one of the stories in the book with reference to the biblical Garden of Eden...
" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)". However, Dylan had been playing those other songs live for some time, allowing them to evolve before recording of the album commenced. For "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", Dylan wanted to record the song before he became too familiar with it. There were at least two studio recordings prior to the one that was released on the album. Dylan recorded an acoustic version on January 13 and a semi-electric version on January 14. The version of the song on the album is sparsely arranged with Dylan accompanying himself on acoustic guitar
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
and harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
, with William E. Lee
Bill Lee (musician)
William James Edwards "Bill" Lee III is an American musician. He has played the bass for many artists including Cat Stevens, Harry Belafonte, Chad Mitchell Trio, Gordon Lightfoot, Aretha Franklin, Odetta, Simon and Garfunkel, and Bob Dylan...
playing bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
. Author Clinton Heylin
Clinton Heylin
Clinton Heylin is an English author who has written extensively about popular music and the work of Bob Dylan.- Education :...
states that the song is another of Dylan's "'go out in the real world' songs, like "To Ramona
To Ramona
"To Ramona" is a folk waltz written by Bob Dylan for his fourth studio album, Another Side of Bob Dylan. The song is one of the many on the album to highlight the more personal, and less political, side of Dylan's songwriting that would become evermore prominent in the future...
", though less conciliatory – the tone is crueler and more demanding." As well as being the final track on Bringing It All Back Home, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" was also the final song to be recorded for the album.
Bill Janovitz
Bill Janovitz
Bill Janovitz is best known as the singer and guitarist of the alternative rock band Buffalo Tom.-History:After enrolling at the University of Massachusetts, Janovitz formed Buffalo Tom with fellow students Chris Colbourn and Tom Maginnis. A friendship with J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr...
of Allmusic describes the music as beautiful, with folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
guitar chord changes
Chord progression
A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...
and a somber melody, while the chorus, with its line "and it's all over now, Baby Blue" has a heartbreaking quality to it. Like other Dylan songs of the period, such as "Chimes of Freedom
Chimes of Freedom
"Chimes of Freedom" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan , produced by Tom Wilson. It was written in early 1964 and was influenced by the symbolist poetry of Arthur Rimbaud. The song depicts the feelings and thoughts of the singer...
" and "Mr. Tambourine Man", the lyrics of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" bear the strong influence of Symbolist poets
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
such as Arthur Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
. Lines such as "take what you have gathered from coincidence" reflect the I Ching
I Ching
The I Ching or "Yì Jīng" , also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts...
philosophy that coincidence represents more than mere chance. The song was described by Q
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
magazine as, "The most toxic of strummed kiss-offs, with not a snowball's chance in hell of reconciliation." Dylan, later describing the song, said that "I had carried that song around in my head for a long time and I remember that when I was writing it, I'd remembered a Gene Vincent
Gene Vincent
Vincent Eugene Craddock , known as Gene Vincent, was an American musician who pioneered the styles of rock and roll and rockabilly. His 1956 top ten hit with his Blue Caps, "Be-Bop-A-Lula", is considered a significant early example of rockabilly...
song. It had always been one of my favorites, Baby Blue... 'When first I met my baby/she said how do you do/she looked into my eyes and said/my name is Baby Blue.' It was one of the songs I used to sing back in high school. Of course, I was singing about a different Baby Blue."
Identity of "Baby Blue"
Dylan's two previous albums, The Times They Are A-Changin'The Times They Are a-Changin'
The Times They Are a-Changin opens with the title track, one of Dylan's most famous songs. Dylan's friend, Tony Glover, recalls visiting Dylan's apartment in September 1963, where he saw a number of song manuscripts and poems lying on a table. "The Times They Are a-Changin'" had yet to be recorded,...
and Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released August 8, 1964 by Columbia Records....
both ended with a farewell song, "Restless Farewell
Restless Farewell
"Restless Farewell" is a song by Bob Dylan, released on his 3rd studio album The Times They Are a-Changin in 1964. It is based on the Irish folk song The Parting Glass. In 1995 Dylan performed the song live as part of the Sinatra: 80 Years My Way television special celebrating entertainer Frank...
" and "It Ain't Me, Babe" respectively. "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" concludes Bringing It All Back Home in consistent fashion. Much speculation has surrounded who or what the "Baby Blue" that Dylan was saying farewell to was. Although Dylan himself has remained mute on the subject, Dylan scholars believe that it is probably an amalgam of personalities within Dylan's social orbit. One person who has been regarded as the subject of the song is folk singer
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
. Dylan and Baez were still in a relationship and were planning to tour together, but Dylan had been growing as an artist and as a person and may have already been planning to leave the relationship. Another possibility is a singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
named David Blue. A friend or acquaintance of Dylan's from his days in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, Blue is pictured on the cover of Dylan and the Band
The Band
The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...
's The Basement Tapes
The Basement Tapes
The Basement Tapes is a 1975 studio album by Bob Dylan and The Band. The songs featuring Dylan's vocals were recorded in 1967, eight years before the album's release, at houses in and around Woodstock, New York, where Dylan and the Band lived...
album wearing a trench coat
Trench coat
A trench coat or trenchcoat is a raincoat made of waterproof heavy-duty cotton drill or poplin, wool gabardine, or leather. It generally has a removable insulated lining; and it is usually knee-length.-History:...
. Yet another possibility is Dylan's one-time friend, folk singer Paul Clayton. Although Clayton had been Dylan's friend throughout 1964, and had accompanied Dylan on the road trip across the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on which "Chimes of Freedom" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" were written, by 1965 he may have become more devoted to Dylan than Dylan was comfortable with, and Clayton's use of amphetamine
Amphetamine
Amphetamine or amfetamine is a psychostimulant drug of the phenethylamine class which produces increased wakefulness and focus in association with decreased fatigue and appetite.Brand names of medications that contain, or metabolize into, amphetamine include Adderall, Dexedrine, Dextrostat,...
s may have made him difficult to be around. However, author Paul Williams, in his book Performing Artist: Book One 1960–1973, counters that "Dylan may have been thinking of a particular person as he wrote it, but not necessarily", adding that the song has such a natural, flowing structure to it, that it could "easily have finished writing itself before Dylan got around to thinking about who 'Baby Blue' was."
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
audience. The song was written at a time when he was moving away from the folk protest
Protest song
A protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs . It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre...
movement musically and, as such, can be seen as a farewell to his days as an acoustic guitar-playing protest singer. Dylan's choice of performing "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" as his last acoustic song at the infamous Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival
The Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...
of 1965, after having had his electric set met with boos, is often used as evidence to support this theory. That particular performance of the song is included in Murray Lerner
Murray Lerner
Murray Lerner is an Academy Award-winning American documentary and experimental film director and producer.1967 saw the release of the film Festival...
's film The Other Side of the Mirror
The Other Side of the Mirror (film)
The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival is a 2007 documentary film about Bob Dylan's appearances at the Newport Folk Festival in three successive years: 1963, 1964, and 1965, directed by Murray Lerner....
.
Yet another interpretation is that Dylan is directing the farewell to himself, particularly his acoustic performer self. The opening line "You must leave now" can be a command, similar to the line "Go away from my window" that opens "It Ain't Me, Babe". But it can also be an imperative, meaning just that it is necessary that you leave. And the song is as much about new beginnings as it is about endings. The song not only notes the requirement that Baby Blue leave, but also includes the hope that Baby Blue will move forward, in lines such as "Strike another match, go start anew". If Dylan is singing the song to himself, then he himself would be the "vagabond who's rapping at your door / standing in the clothes that you once wore". That is, the new, electric, surrealist Dylan would be the vagabond, not yet having removed the "clothes" of the old protest singer. Alternatively, the vagabond and "stepping stones" referenced in the song have been interpreted as Dylan's folk audience that Dylan needs to leave behind. He would also be telling himself to "Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you." Others he may be saying farewell to in the song are any of the women he had known, the political left or to the illusions of his youth.
Legacy
In addition to appearing on the Bringing It All Back Home album, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" is also included on the compilation albums Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. IIBob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II , also known as More Bob Dylan Greatest Hits, was the second compilation album released by Bob Dylan. With Dylan not expected to release any new material for an extended period of time, CBS Records president Clive Davis proposed issuing a double LP compilation of...
, The Essential Bob Dylan
The Essential Bob Dylan
The Essential Bob Dylan is a compilation by Bob Dylan, released as a double-CD set in 2000, part of Columbia Records' "The Essential" series....
, Dylan
Dylan (2007 album)
Dylan is a greatest hits collection by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The collection was released on October 2, 2007 by Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings with worldwide distribution through Sony BMG...
and the UK version of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits is the eighth album released by Bob Dylan on Columbia Records, original catalogue number KCS 9643. It contains every Top 40 single Dylan enjoyed through 1967. It peaked at #10 on the pop album chart in the United States, and went to #3 on the album chart in the United...
. Dylan played the song for Donovan in his hotel room during his May 1965 tour of England in a scene shown in the D. A. Pennebaker
D. A. Pennebaker
Donn Alan Pennebaker is an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema/Cinéma vérité. Performing arts and politics are his primary subjects.-Biography:...
documentary Dont Look Back
Dont Look Back
Dont Look Back is a 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically...
. A version of the song is included on the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
's documentary No Direction Home
No Direction Home
No Direction Home is a documentary film by Martin Scorsese that traces the life of Bob Dylan, and his impact on 20th century American popular music and culture. The film does not cover Dylan's entire career; it concentrates on the period between Dylan's arrival in New York in January 1961 and his...
. A live version from Dylan's famous May 17, 1966 concert in Manchester, England (popularly but mistakenly known as the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
concert) is included on The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert. Another live version from the Rolling Thunder Revue
Rolling Thunder Revue
The Rolling Thunder Revue was a famed U.S. concert tour consisting of a traveling caravan of musicians, headed by Bob Dylan, that took place in late 1975 and early 1976; the prevailing theory was that the tour was named after the Native American shaman Rolling Thunder. Others maintained that tour...
tour of 1975 is contained on The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue
The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue
The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue is a live album by Bob Dylan released by Columbia Records in 2002. It documents the Rolling Thunder Revue, led by Bob Dylan prior to the release of the album Desire...
. As of 2009, Dylan continues to perform the song in concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
.
In a 2005 readers' poll reported in Mojo
Mojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" was listed as the #10 all time best Bob Dylan song, and a similar poll of artists ranked the song #7. In 2002, Uncut
UNCUT (magazine)
Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections...
listed it as the #11 all time best Bob Dylan song.
Them's version
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
band Them
Them (band)
Them were a Northern Irish band formed in Belfast in April 1964, most prominently known for the garage rock standard "Gloria" and launching singer Van Morrison's musical career...
(featuring Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...
) recorded a cover of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" that was first released on their album, Them Again
Them Again
Them Again is the second album by the Northern Irish band, Them, whose lead singer and songwriter was Van Morrison. The album was released by Decca Records in the UK on January 21, 1966 but it failed to chart. In the U.S...
, in January 1966 in the UK and April 1966 in the U.S. The song was subsequently issued as a single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
(b/w "I'm Gonna Dress in Black") in the Netherlands during October 1966 but failed to reach the Dutch Singles Chart
Dutch Top 40
The Dutch Top 40 is a weekly music chart, which started as the "Veronica Top 40", because the offshore radio station Radio Veronica was the first to introduce it. It remained "The Veronica Top 40" until 1974, when the station was forced to stop broadcasting...
. It was later re-released in Germany in December 1973 with "Bad or Good" on the B-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
, following its appearance in the 1972 German television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
, Die Rocker (aka Rocker). The single became a hit in Germany, first entering the charts in February 1974 and peaking at #13, during a chart stay of 14 weeks.
Morrison recalled his first encounter with Dylan's music in an interview in 2000: "I think I heard [The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Columbia Records. Whereas his debut album Bob Dylan had contained only two original songs, Freewheelin initiated the process of writing contemporary words to traditional melodies....
] in a record shop in Smith Street. And I just thought it was just incredible that this guy's not singing about 'moon in June' and he's getting away with it... The subject matter wasn't pop songs, ya know, and I thought this kind of opens the whole thing up." Morrison's record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
at the time, Bert Berns
Bert Berns
Bertrand Russell Berns , most commonly known as Bert Berns as well as Bert Russell and Russell Byrd, was an American songwriter and record producer of the 1960s...
, encouraged him to find models for his songs, so he bought Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home album in March 1965. One of the songs on the album held a unique fascination for Morrison and he soon started performing "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in small clubs and pubs as a solo artist (without Them).
Producer Tommy Scott was conscious of the importance of Dylan's music on the current pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
scene and was eager for Morrison to cover "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" during the 1965 sessions for Them's second LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
. After a failed, preliminary attempt to record the track with session pianist
Session musician
Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...
, Phil Coulter
Phil Coulter
Phil Coulter is an artist with an international reputation as a successful songwriter, pianist, music producer, arranger and director. His success has spanned four decades and he is one of the biggest record sellers in Ireland...
, at Regent Sound studios in London, Scott reconsidered his approach to the song. Scott recalled in interview that "The number wasn't going down, Van wasn't sure. Then the guys said he didn't fancy it and thought it was cheap because I'd tried to go after the "Here Comes the Night" tempo." The band returned to the song during a later session at Decca's
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
recording studios. Scott decided to rearrange the song's musical backing, incorporating a distinctive reoccurring blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
riff
RIFF
The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....
and piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
work from Them's keyboard
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
player, Peter Bardens
Peter Bardens
Peter Bardens was a keyboardist and a founding member of the British progressive rock group Camel. He played organ, piano, synthesizers and mellotron and wrote songs with Andrew Latimer...
, resulting in a finished recording that the band were satisfied with. The song featured one of Morrison's most expressive vocals and included subtle changes to Dylan's lyrics; instead of singing "Forget the dead you've left" Morrison alters the line to "Forget the debts you've left".
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
stated in a 1969 Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
review that "Only on Dylan's 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue' does Van truly shatter all the limits on his special powers...Each note stands out as a special creation – 'the centuries of emotion that go into a musician’s choice from one note to the next' is a phrase that describes the startling depth of this recording. Played very fast, Van's voice virtually fighting for control over the band, 'Baby Blue' emerges as music that is both dramatic and terrifying." In recent years, author Clinton Heylin has noted that Them's 1966 recording of the song is "that genuine rarity, a Dylan cover to match the original." After Van Morrison left the band in 1966, Them spinoff group, The Belfast Gypsies, recorded a cover of the song on their 1967 album, Them Belfast Gypsies.
Them's interpretation of the song, with Morrison as vocalist, became influential during the years 1966 and 1967, with several garage rock
Garage rock
Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...
bands, including The Chocolate Watch Band and The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was an American psychedelic rock band of the late 1960s, based in Los Angeles, California.-History:...
, recording versions of the song that were indebted to Them's cover version. Beck
Beck
Beck Hansen is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by the stage name Beck...
used a sample
Sampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
of Them's 1966 recording of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" as the basis for his single "Jack-Ass
Jack-Ass (song)
"Jack-Ass" is a single by Beck, taken from the album Odelay. The song is based on a sample of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", performed by Them, from their 1966 album Them Again....
", which appeared on his 1996 album, Odelay
Odelay
Odelay is the fifth studio album by American alternative rock artist Beck, originally released on June 18, 1996, by DGC Records.After the mainstream success of "Loser", Odelay featured several hit singles, including "Where It's At", "Devils Haircut", and "The New Pollution"...
(see 1996 in music
1996 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1996.-January:* January – At the trial of two American teenagers, Nicholaus McDonald and Brian Bassett, for the murder of Bassett's parents and young brother, defense lawyers attempt to lay the blame for the murders on the fact...
). Insane Clown Posse
Insane Clown Posse
Insane Clown Posse is an American hip hop duo from Detroit, Michigan. The group is composed of Joseph Bruce and Joseph Utsler, who perform under the respective personas of the "wicked clowns" Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope. Insane Clown Posse performs a style of hardcore hip hop known as horrorcore...
later sampled Beck's song as the basis for "Another Love Song
Another Love Song (Insane Clown Posse song)
"Another Love Song" is a 1999 song by hip hop duo, Insane Clown Posse, performed by member Violent J, and is their first single from their album The Amazing Jeckel Brothers The song is also a part 2 to the song "Love Song" by Insane Clown Posse on their album Ringmaster.-Music:Referred to as a...
", which appeared on their 1999 album, The Amazing Jeckel Brothers
The Amazing Jeckel Brothers
The Amazing Jeckel Brothers is the fifth studio album by American hip hop group Insane Clown Posse, released on May 25, 1999, by Island Records, in association with Psychopathic Records. Recording sessions for the album took place from 1998 to 1999. The album is the fifth Joker's Card in the...
. Hole
Hole (band)
Hole is an American alternative rock band that originally formed in Los Angeles in 1989. The band is fronted by vocalist/songwriter and rhythm guitarist Courtney Love, who co-founded Hole with former songwriter/lead guitarist Eric Erlandson...
's cover of the song also uses Them's recording as a blueprint. Them's original 1966 version of the song has appeared in movies, such as the 1996 film Basquiat, the 1972 German film Rocker by Klaus Lemke and the 2000 film Girl, Interrupted
Girl, Interrupted (film)
Girl, Interrupted is a 1999 drama film about a teenager's 18-month stay at a mental institution, starring Winona Ryder, Brittany Murphy, Angelina Jolie, Whoopi Goldberg and Vanessa Redgrave, with Jolie winning an Academy Award for her performance....
.
In 1993, Van Morrison included Them's cover of the song on his compilation album The Best of Van Morrison Volume Two
The Best of Van Morrison Volume Two
The Best of Van Morrison Volume Two is a compilation album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison released in 1993.Morrison chose the tracks for this album himself. It is mostly drawn from his work during 1984-1991. "Real Real Gone" from the 1990 album Enlightenment was the only song...
. In addition to recording "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" with Them, Morrison has covered the song frequently in concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
throughout his solo career, beginning in 1974, but has never released a studio or live recording of it as a solo artist. In 1984, Morrison made a guest appearance at one of Bob Dylan's concerts in London and the two musicians performed a duet of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". Morrison and Dylan also sang a duet of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" at the final concert of Dylan's 1984 tour on July 8, 1984 at Slane Castle
Slane Castle
Slane Castle is located in the town of Slane, within the Boyne Valley of County Meath, Ireland. The castle has been the family home of the Conyngham Marquessate since the 18th century....
, Ireland.
In a 2009 Paste
Paste (magazine)
Paste is a monthly music and entertainment digital magazine published in the United States by Wolfgang's Vault. Its tagline is "Signs of Life in Music, Film and Culture."-History:...
magazine readers, writers and editors poll of the 50 Best Bob Dylan Covers of All Time, Them's version of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" was ranked at #28.
The Byrds' version
The ByrdsThe Byrds
The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
' recording of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" first saw release on October 29, 1969 as part of the band's Ballad of Easy Rider album. The song also appeared on the B-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
of the band's December 1969 single, "Jesus Is Just Alright
Jesus Is Just Alright
"Jesus Is Just Alright" is a gospel song written by Arthur Reid Reynolds and first recorded by Reynolds' own group, The Art Reynolds Singers, on their 1966 album, Tellin' It Like It Is....
", which reached #97 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
chart. The Byrds had previously attempted to record the song on two separate occasions, some four years earlier, during studio sessions
Studio recording
The term studio recording means any recording made in a studio, as opposed to a live recording, which is usually made in a concert venue or a theatre, with an audience attending the performance.-Studio cast recordings:...
for their second album, Turn! Turn! Turn!
Turn! Turn! Turn! (album)
Turn! Turn! Turn! is the second album by the folk rock band The Byrds and was released in December 1965 on Columbia Records . Like its predecessor, Mr. Tambourine Man, the album epitomized the folk rock genre and continued the band's successful mix of vocal harmony and jangly twelve-string...
The Byrds initially planned to release "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in 1965, as a follow-up to their previous hit Bob Dylan covers, "Mr. Tambourine Man
Mr. Tambourine Man
"Mr. Tambourine Man" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, which was released on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. The Byrds also recorded a version of the song that was released as their first single on Columbia Records, reaching number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and...
" and "All I Really Want to Do". The band's first attempt at recording the song was on June 28, 1965: resulting in an irreverent, garage rock
Garage rock
Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...
style take on the song. This version was deemed unsatisfactory and remained unreleased for 22 years, until its inclusion on the Never Before
Never Before (album)
Never Before is a compilation album by the American rock band The Byrds, consisting of previously unreleased outtakes, alternate versions, and rarities. It was initially released by Re-Flyte Records in December 1987 and was subsequently reissued on CD in 1989, with an additional seven bonus tracks...
album in 1987. The June 28, 1965 recording can also be heard on the 1996 expanded reissue of Turn! Turn! Turn! as well as on The Byrds and There Is a Season
There Is a Season
There Is a Season is a four-CD box set by the American rock band The Byrds that was released on September 26, 2006 by Columbia/Legacy. It comprises 99 tracks and includes material from every one of the band's twelve studio albums, presented in roughly chronological order...
box sets.
The band attempted a second recording of the song during August 1965. A program director
Program director
In service industries, such as education, a program director or programme director researches, plans, develops and implements one or more of the firm's professional services...
from KRLA
KRLA
KRLA is a radio station broadcasting a News/Talk format. Licensed to Glendale, California, USA, it serves the Southern California area. The station is currently owned by Salem Communications.- KIEV :...
, who was present at the recording sessions, was impressed enough to play an acetate disc
Acetate disc
An acetate disc, also known as a test acetate, dubplate , lacquer , transcription disc or instantaneous disc...
of the track on air, plugging it as The Byrds' new single. However, The Byrds soon abandoned the idea of releasing "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" as their third single and instead issued the song "Turn! Turn! Turn!". The Byrds' August 1965 version of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" has never been released.
Guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
and band leader, Roger McGuinn
Roger McGuinn
James Roger McGuinn is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for being the lead singer and lead guitarist on many of The Byrds' records...
, returned to the composition during a July 22, 1969 recording session for the band's Ballad of Easy Rider album. McGuinn decided to slow down the tempo and radically alter the song's arrangement
Arrangement
The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
to fashion a more somber and serious version than those recorded in 1965. In tandem with the slower tempo, the band dragged the syllables of each word out in order to emphasize the world-weariness of the song's lyric. Ultimately, McGuinn was dissatisfied with the recording of the song included on Ballad of Easy Rider, feeling that it tended to drag within the context of the album. In addition to appearing on Ballad of Easy Rider, The Byrds' 1969 recording of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" can also be found on the compilation album
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
s The Byrds Play Dylan
The Byrds Play Dylan
The Byrds Play Dylan is the name of two compilation albums by the American rock band The Byrds, one released in 1979 and the other issued in 2002. As their titles suggest, each compilation consists of interpretations of Bob Dylan penned songs, which The Byrds recorded at different stages of their...
and The Very Best of The Byrds
The Very Best of The Byrds
The Very Best of The Byrds is a compilation album by the American rock band The Byrds, released by Columbia Records in 1997. Initially the compilation was only released in Europe but as of 2006, the album has seen some release in the U.S...
.
Other covers
Many other artists have covered the song. Joan BaezJoan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, who has sometimes been speculated to be the subject of the song, covered it on her 1965 album Farewell, Angelina. It is one of four Dylan covers on that album, the others being the title track, "Mama, You Been on My Mind" (recorded as "Daddy, You Been on My Mind"), and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" is a song written by Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962. It was first recorded in Columbia Records' Studio A on 6 December 1962 for his second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The lyric structure is based on the question and answer form of the traditional ballad "Lord...
". Baez sings "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in a falsetto voice, but retains the power of Dylan's version. Baez has continued to perform the song at live concerts
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
well into the modern era.
Others who have covered the song include Judy Collins
Judy Collins
Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...
, Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
, Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....
, Bryan Ferry
Bryan Ferry
Bryan Ferry, CBE is an English singer, musician, and songwriter. Ferry came to public prominence in the early 1970s as lead vocalist and principal songwriter with the band Roxy Music, who enjoyed a highly successful career with three number one albums and ten singles entering the top ten charts in...
, Manfred Mann's Earth Band
Manfred Mann's Earth Band
Manfred Mann's Earth Band is a British progressive rock group formed in 1971 by Manfred Mann.-Formation:Having started in the 1960s with a British band that had such hits as "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" and "The Mighty Quinn", then moving on to Jazz Fusion with Manfred Mann's Chapter Three, Manfred's third...
, Echo & the Bunnymen
Echo & the Bunnymen
Echo & the Bunnymen are an English post-punk band, formed in Liverpool in 1978. The original line-up consisted of vocalist Ian McCulloch, guitarist Will Sergeant and bass player Les Pattinson, supplemented by a drum machine. By 1980, Pete de Freitas had joined as the band's drummer, and their debut...
, Falco
Falco (musician)
Johann Hölzel , better known by his stage name Falco, was an Austrian pop and rock musician and rapper. He had several international hits: "Der Kommissar", "Rock Me Amadeus", "Vienna Calling", "Jeanny", "The Sound of Musik", "Coming Home " and posthumously, "Out Of The Dark"...
, The Seldom Scene, Jon Fratelli, the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
, The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was an American psychedelic rock band of the late 1960s, based in Los Angeles, California.-History:...
, The Chocolate Watch Band, Richie Havens
Richie Havens
Richard P. "Richie" Havens is an African American folk singer and guitarist. He is best known for his intense, rhythmic guitar style , soulful covers of pop and folk songs, and his opening performance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival.-Career:Born in Brooklyn, Havens was the eldest of nine children...
, Steve Howe
Steve Howe (guitarist)
Stephen James "Steve" Howe is an English guitarist, known for his work with the progressive rock group Yes...
, The 13th Floor Elevators, Hole
Hole (band)
Hole is an American alternative rock band that originally formed in Los Angeles in 1989. The band is fronted by vocalist/songwriter and rhythm guitarist Courtney Love, who co-founded Hole with former songwriter/lead guitarist Eric Erlandson...
, Graham Bonnet
Graham Bonnet
Graham Bonnet is an English rock vocalist, and songwriter. He has recorded and performed as a solo artist, and as a member of several hard rock and heavy metal bands including Rainbow, the Michael Schenker Group, Alcatrazz, and Impellitteri.-Early days:Bonnet was born in Skegness in 1947...
and Chris Farlowe
Chris Farlowe
Chris Farlowe is an English rock, blues and soul singer. He is best known for his hit single "Out of Time", which rose to #1 in the UK Singles Chart in 1966, and his association with Colosseum and the Thunderbirds.Outside his music career, Farlowe collects war memorabilia.-Career:Inspired by Lonnie...
. Gal Costa
Gal Costa
Gal Costa is a Brazilian singer of popular music.-Early life:...
performed a version of the song in Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
under the title of "Negro Amor" on her 1977 album Caras e Bocas
Caras e Bocas
Caras e Bocas is an album by Brazilian singer Gal Costa released in 1977.-Track listing:#Caras e Bocas#Me Recuso#Louca Me Chamam #Clariô#Minha Estrela É Do Oriente #Tigresa...
. Link Wray
Link Wray
Fred Lincoln "Link" Wray Jr was an American rock and roll guitarist, songwriter and occasional singer....
also covered the song on his album Bullshot.
George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
, who performed with Dylan in the Traveling Wilburys
Traveling Wilburys
The Traveling Wilburys were an English–American supergroup consisting of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, accompanied by drummer Jim Keltner...
and also co-wrote the song "I'd Have You Anytime" with Dylan in November 1968, did not cover the song, but did reference the title in his 1987 single, "When We Was Fab
When We Was Fab
"When We Was Fab" is a song written by George Harrison and Jeff Lynne about the days of Beatlemania, when The Beatles were first referred to as the "Fab Four". The song appears as the sixth track on Harrison's 1987 album Cloud Nine and was later released as the second single from that album in...
". One of the lyrics in the song reads "But it's all over now, baby blue", which is a nod from Harrison to his friend Dylan.
The Chocolate Watch Band version of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" is featured in the documentary Tarnation. The song was a source of inspiration for Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
' short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" is a frequently anthologized short story written by Joyce Carol Oates. The story first appeared in the Fall 1966 edition of Epoch Magazine. It was inspired by three Tucson, Arizona murders committed by Charles Schmid, which were profiled in Life magazine...
", prompting her to dedicate the story to Dylan. A portion of the first verse of the song was used as the title for Barry Hannah
Barry Hannah
Howard Barry Hannah was an American novelist and short story writer from Mississippi.The author of eight novels and five short story collections , Hannah worked with notable American editors and publishers such as Gordon Lish, Seymour Lawrence, and Morgan Entrekin...
's 1995 novel Yonder Stands Your Orphan. Graham Bonnet
Graham Bonnet
Graham Bonnet is an English rock vocalist, and songwriter. He has recorded and performed as a solo artist, and as a member of several hard rock and heavy metal bands including Rainbow, the Michael Schenker Group, Alcatrazz, and Impellitteri.-Early days:Bonnet was born in Skegness in 1947...
's version of the song appears on the soundtrack of the 2009 Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson
Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...
film The Lovely Bones
The Lovely Bones (film)
The Lovely Bones is a 2009 American drama film directed by Peter Jackson. It is a film adaptation of the award-winning and best-selling 2002 novel of the same name by Alice Sebold. The film stars Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon, alongside Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz as Susie's parents Jack and...
.
While not actually a cover, the rock band Nine Days
Nine Days
Nine Days is an American rock band who were popular in the early 2000s. Formed in Oyster Bay by frontman John Hampson and Brian Desveaux, they released three independent albums in the 1990s before their mainstream debut album, The Madding Crowd, released in 2000...
included a sample of Dylan singing two lines from "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in their song "Bob Dylan" from the album The Madding Crowd
The Madding Crowd
The Madding Crowd is the major-label debut album by the band Nine Days. It spawned two major hit singles, "Absolutely " and "If I Am"...
.
External links
- Lyrics: It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
- Janovitz B., It's All over Now, Baby Blue (song entry) at [ AMG]